


Operam Iustitiae

by tyelperin



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: HP: EWE, M/M, Will Take a While To Get Updated, characters will be updated in upcoming chapters, rating will change in upcoming chapters, relationships will be updated in upcoming chapters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-26
Updated: 2014-07-26
Packaged: 2018-02-10 13:59:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2027661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tyelperin/pseuds/tyelperin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Would you try to change the world if you could?"<br/>- HJG.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Operam Iustitiae

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: These characters do not belong to me, nor does the Harry Potter saga. They're all property of J.K Rowling. Thankfully, I have nothing to do with the epilogue, which's been conveniently forgotten here. 
> 
> A fair warning: I do a lot of weird things, deal with me. This is going to be fluffy and harmless though, I suck at angst. It's going to be, however, full of kind of heavy matters that are going to be discussed and acted upon by the characters such as racism within the wizarding community. I'll update tags whenever needed.
> 
> I was going to write "as always" to start this paragraph when I realized that I've never published here before, just once and it's now orphaned. I've been publishing somewhere else for a while and habits are hard to break, I guess. Somehow I found myself an excellent beta, Dimly, who's not afraid of telling me when I heck up. Cheers to you and Pie, Dim, you nerdos.
> 
> Cheers to all of you to, those who're reading. Any mistakes are completely and absolutely mine, specially in these notes. 
> 
> Enjoy the ride.

I think I might be scared  
Of the world and the way it makes you feel afraid  
And how it gets in the way

 

**1998**

 

I’ll take Cadogan’s pony, that’s what people sometimes say.

He doesn’t know what he can salvage now, if he can salvage anything at all. If he can, he’s too tired to try. This is no tricky situation either, it’s way more complicated than that. Saying that it’s tricky is like saying that a dragon is nothing but a large lizard. He knows that and it bugs him. It makes him wonder how people can say things like that when they hadn’t thought of what to do after a situation goes beyond fixing.

There’s a lot to say about being raised by Lucius and none of it is good. Moreover, none of it involves freedom of any kind. Pretending was nice, thinking that he was who he wanted to be, but now that the war is over he can’t keep on pretending. He’s never been able to be who he wanted to be and admitting this means acknowledging that he may not be at all.

As he looks at himself in the mirror he realizes that he’s lost. He knew way before this moment, he has to admit that much to himself, and that’s one of the reasons why he cried with Myrtle. If anyone were to ask him now, he’d have trouble telling them if that happened yesterday or years ago. 

What disturbs him isn’t that he knows that he’s lost. No. It’s far worse. When he looks at himself, he sees nothing but an empty vessel, a container. Something instead of someone.

He feels, at least. Pain, anger, regret. He feels and that means that he’s alive, that he exists. Does he though? He asks himself. Does he exist or does Lucius keep on living through him.

His reflection isn’t what he wants it to be. His reflection isn’t Draco nor is it Lucius anymore. It shows someone that he doesn’t know but that looks way too much like his father for him to be comfortable looking at.

I’ll take Cadogan’s pony, he thinks, and it sounds good. Sounds like something he, the person that he might be, would say. It’s practical, turns thoughts into actions. He says it out loud.

“I’ll take Cadogan’s pony.” He mutters, and it makes him feel better and smile a little bitter smile.

Two hours later his hair is black. He stops trying to look regal and dignified. He decides to leave his wand behind.

And he starts living.

xXx

**1999**

Time passes. People want to forget in that way that’s confusing and contradictory, because they also want to remember. It was the Second Wizarding War and if they can recall what went wrong, what triggered it, they’ll be ready to stop a third. But it’s almost delusional, or so Harry thinks, the way they keep saying without Voldemort that it would’ve never happened. Now that Harry is no longer 15 years old, and maybe wiser, he knows that that is not true.

Not even a bit.

He looks around himself and notices little things, details so small he needs to concentrate to catch. Once he starts paying attention, he realizes that he can’t stop and it bothers him. He can’t do shit about it. All he can do is try to blend in, stay as invisible as he can manage, draw no attention towards himself.

Either way, maybe because he’s got too much time on his hands and is tired of being tossed around by newspapers and charities, every evening he disguises himself as best as he can and walks up and down Diagon Alley. Listens to people talk.

Sometimes he wants to stop walking, grab some of them by the shoulders and yell at them. It seems like a pretty good idea, moreover when he knows that most of them really believe what they’re saying. That muggles are lucky they didn’t get involved, that mudbloods ought to stay out of wizarding matters, that Voldemort was this one isolated incident. Now that they know better, now that there are no Voldemorts, it can’t happen again.

How could it, if they live in a world that’s not even half as narrow minded and discriminating as he was? That’s what they say.

Sometimes it gets to be too much, reaches parts of himself that he thought long gone, and he wants to leave. Craves it. Finds himself halfway through putting everything he owns in a bag, and run for the hills without once looking back at Grimmauld Place. Then he remembers that he has no clue about what to do with his life and that even if he doesn’t like it he’s lost. Which always makes him unpack his things and wait. For what, he’s not sure.

No matter how much he wants to leave, how done with everything he feels, he always stays.

Somehow, something keeps him there. There’s too much going on. The trials aren’t over, everything is happening all at once and they need him there. He keeps telling himself that. They need me, he thinks, and sometimes he even believes it. But he knows the truth is he’s only a kid who’s been forced to grow up too fast and he knows that if he left they wouldn’t really mind. Not after a couple of months, at least. There would be an uproar that would be forgotten. Every hero falls out of the limelight eventually.

But he stays, anyway.


End file.
